White Finland

White Finland was the nationalist refugee government of Finland that was headed by Pehr Evind Svinhufud's first senate at the time of the Finnish Civil War of 1918. The Whites were supported by the paramilitary White Guard, Jaeger troops, other recruitees and draftees, and the political right. The Jaegers had left from the Russian Empire during World War I to be trained by the German Empire, seeking to achieve independence for Finland. Many of them were veterans of the war, and they returned to Finland to fight off the pro-Bolshevik Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic. The Whites had no political goals in common apart from stopping the communist Reds from taking power and returning to constitutional rule by the Senate. Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim commanded White Finland's armed forces during the civil war, and the Whites defeated the Reds during the war.